By the winter of 1856–1857, Young was tormented by defections in his ranks. Responding with his “Mormon Reformation,” he had his church elders sweep through the communities of the territory “in an orgy of recrimination and rebaptism.” He instructed that backsliders were to be “hewn down.” His enforcement arm, called the Danites, for Sons of Dan, and commonly referred to as the Avenging Angels, gained especial notoriety.
Here's the preceding paragraph:
But perhaps even more relevant to the later events at Mountain Meadows was the role of a church doctrine more secret, sacred, and controversial than polygamy. The belief in “blood atonement”—that there are certain sins that can be forgiven only when the sinner’s own blood spills on the ground—was a reality not even the most sympathetic chroniclers of the church have been able to deny. “It would be bad history to pretend that there were no holy murders in Utah,” Wallace Stegner wrote gingerly but candidly in his classic book Mormon Country, “…that there was no saving of the souls of sinners by the shedding of their blood during the ‘blood atonement’ revival of 1856, that there were no mysterious disappearances of apostates and offensive Gentiles.”
Is it possible she's still quoting Wallace Stegner?
Whatever, she was definitely sloppy.
We hate to seem like we don’t trust every nut with a story, but there’s evidence we can point to, and dance while shouting taunting phrases.
By the winter of 1856–1857, Young was tormented by defections in his ranks. Responding with his “Mormon Reformation,” he had his church elders sweep through the communities of the territory “in an orgy of recrimination and rebaptism.” He instructed that backsliders were to be “hewn down.” His enforcement arm, called the Danites, for Sons of Dan, and commonly referred to as the Avenging Angels, gained especial notoriety.
Here's the preceding paragraph:
But perhaps even more relevant to the later events at Mountain Meadows was the role of a church doctrine more secret, sacred, and controversial than polygamy. The belief in “blood atonement”—that there are certain sins that can be forgiven only when the sinner’s own blood spills on the ground—was a reality not even the most sympathetic chroniclers of the church have been able to deny. “It would be bad history to pretend that there were no holy murders in Utah,” Wallace Stegner wrote gingerly but candidly in his classic book Mormon Country, “…that there was no saving of the souls of sinners by the shedding of their blood during the ‘blood atonement’ revival of 1856, that there were no mysterious disappearances of apostates and offensive Gentiles.”
Is it possible she's still quoting Wallace Stegner?
Whatever, she was definitely sloppy.
Good catch, beastie. Not just sloppy, but weird, too. Who constructs footnotes like that (I'm only familiar with Chicago/Turabian format)?